7400 project encrypts and decrypts data

[Nakul], [Nikilesh], and [Nischal] just finished posting about their entry in the 2012 Open 7400 Logic competition. It’s an encryption system based entirely on 7400 logic chips. The device operates on 8-bit binary numbers, which limits its real-world applications. But we bet they learned a lot during the development process.

The encryption algorithm is based on a the concept of cellular automaton. This is a something with which we’re already familiar having seen many Conway’s Game of Life projects around here. What we’re not familiar with is this particular wing of the concept called ‘Rule 30‘. It works well with this project because a complex pattern can be generated from simple beginnings.

After conceptualizing how the system might work the team spent some time transferring the implementation to the chips they had available. The end result is a quartet of chip-packed breadboards and a rat’s nets of wires, but the system is capable of both encrypting and decrypting data.

The ZIF breakout-board..that is available in our lab..we are engineering students by the way..we tried implementing it on the ‘trainer kits’ initially (thats what we call them). But each kit holds only 5 chips. So, 4 kits and a huge mess of wires..unbelievably difficult to debug. So we switched to breadboards instead.

The ZIF breakout-board,we call it as ‘trainer kits’. it is available in our lab (we are engineering students). We tried implementing the entire circuit in it. But each kit holds 5 chips and there was a huge mess of wires. Unbelievably difficult to debug. So we moved on to bread boards instead :)